The story of the Ingham Institute started in 1996. Bob and the late Jack Ingham, the owners of Inghams Enterprises, one of Australia’s most famous poultry producers, based in Liverpool, committed funds, in 1996, for the establishment of the Ingham Institute within the Liverpool medical precinct.
The brothers, who started in the chicken business after their father, Walter, died in 1960, had a vision for a research facility in South-West Sydney linking clinical health services and universities to clinical practice.
Their initial financial commitment to the institute became one of the company’s most significant contributions to the community.
The NSW government came to the party in July 1996, when it made a commitment to match the founding funds by the Ingham brothers, dollar for dollar.
A key turning point for the institute was the federal government’s announcement, in March 2009, that the institute’s application for funds for $46.9 million to build the new research facility linking the institute with the adjacent Liverpool Hospital.
Later that year Bob Ingham – his brother, Jack, passed away in 2003 – committed further funding of $3 million over three years, while Lady (Mary) Fairfax, another long-term support of the institute, committed $450,000 over three years.
The year, 2010, was taken up with the appointment of architects, McConnel Smith& Johnson, awarding the building tender to Richard Crookes Construction and the demolition of buildings on the site, in Campbell Street, and the turning of the first sod by the then deputy prime minister, Julia Gillard.
Coming to the present year, a traditional “smoking ceremony” marked the completion of the institute’s five-storey building, and the first of 200 scientists, conducting research at Liverpool, Campbelltown, Bankstown, Fairfield and Bowral hospitals began relocating to the building.
The institute’s project management committee agreed to retain a sandstone archway and position it, as a feature, on the ground floor of the new building.
“Retaining the sandstone archway was the board of directors’ way of maintaining heritage links to the site”, said Terry Goldacre, chairman of the Ingham Institute
Also, during the year, a cheque for $1 million was presented to the institute on behalf of Bob Ingham, at the Narellan Rotary Club’s annual charity ball, as was $150,000 from Lady (Mary) Fairfax.
Completion of the Ingham Institute for Applied Medical research building marks the first stage of the research precinct at Liverpool Hospital, which will also be made up of a Clinical Skills & Simulation Centre and a high-tech Research Bunker containing an MRI-Linac Accelerator.
The cancer therapy technology will be an Australian-first and one of only three in the world. Completion of the Institute’s Clinical Skills & Simulation Centre and Research Bunker is expected by November.
The institute is a collaboration between the Health Services in South Western Sydney, UNSW and UWS, within the recently refurbished Liverpool Hospital precinct.
The core research areas at the institute, a world-class facility, include cancer, cardiovascular disease, community & population health, early years/childhood health, infectious & inflammatory diseases and injury, with a focus on translating findings into practical clinical outcomes.
